Belle stood still and tall, a young sapling still green under the taut gray sky. She was small, yes, in the face of the beast, but she continued to hold her chin aloft. She twitched hair out of her face, loose-shaken curls that tickled her cheeks or brushed her eyelashes. The fingers of sunlight the King stood in were few, but strong, and she could feel the heat as it radiated outward, soft on her skin.
She had missed spring.
"With all due respect, there is no order of things, Your Majesty." Belle's voice was clear, girlish but confident. She knew, perhaps, it was easier as a non-titled woman to say such a thing, but it rang true to her mind. She did not believe in something so simple as fate or a predetermined path. Belle wrote her own story and she did not waste time imagining plot points. She let the scratch of pen take her where it willed—at times to bed, and others to recumbent, cursed kings in repose. Her eyebrows arched and her smile threatened to spill out. But the King was not a man who could laugh at himself. The maid cleared her throat. "Although I can understand the nature of your bias."